posted
There's a Slate article today about why children read fantasy.
The basic premise is that children use fantasy as a way to explore theories about how the world works, and that it's because of innate human rationality that we seek out alternative worlds (as children). The author also submits that fantasy is more appealing to children than adults because adults are constrained by necessity to spend time imagining the meeting next week, or the new house they're going to move into, rather than the realms of Narnia. Does this mean adults who read fantasy are being immature and escaping adult responsibility? Or that we're so capable of dealing with adult stress that we have energy left over to explore alternative worlds? I'll let you decide.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
For a rebuttal, I recommend "On Fairy Stories" by J.R.R. Tolkien, which can be found in The Tolkien Reader. Also see the essay "On Juvenile Tastes" by C.S. Lewis, which can be found in Of Other Worlds.
Some tastes:
Tolkien:
quote:[T]he common opinion seems to be that there is a natural connexion between the minds of children and fairy-stories, of the same order as the connexion between children's bodies and milk. I think this is an error...
Lewis:
quote:Children are regarded as being at any rate a distinct literary species, and the production of books that cater for their supposedly odd and alien taste has become an industry; almost a heavy one. This theory does not seem to me to be borne out by the facts. For one thing, there is no literary taste common to all children. We find among them all the same types as among ourselves. Many of them, like many of us, never read when they can find any other entertainment. Some of them choose quiet, realistic 'slice-of-life' books...Some like fantasies and marvels...
quote:The basic premise is that children use fantasy as a way to explore theories about how the world works, and that it's because of innate human rationality that we seek out alternative worlds (as children).
I think this could be said just as truly about ALL literature, not just fantasy.
quote:The author also submits that fantasy is more appealing to children than adults because adults are constrained by necessity to spend time imagining the meeting next week, or the new house they're going to move into, rather than the realms of Narnia. Does this mean adults who read fantasy are being immature and escaping adult responsibility? Or that we're so capable of dealing with adult stress that we have energy left over to explore alternative worlds?
Adults have two problems that I think sometimes lead them to fail to appreciate fantasy. First of all, starting even in middle school, they face an increasing amount of peer pressure and social expectations to act in the pragmatic way that we typically associate with adulthood. Because fantasy seems unadultish, it tends to be a violation of those social expectations to like it. Secondly, adults tend to be less flexible in their thinking, I suspect. Many of the theories considered in fantasy books are ideas that adults have already rejected and don't bother with any more. Many adults have already concluded there is no magic, and people can't fly, and Santa doesn't exist, and so on, and don't wish to reconsider. Hence, adults don't treat stories relating to these themes seriously. They tend to use them for escapism instead, knowing they are false but reading them to avoid what they know is true. Those of us who like fantasy, I think, are simply more willing to go against normal adult standards and are more interested in considering ideas that many adults have already ruled out.
Having said that, I think the above leads authors to create very different fantasy stories for adults and children. I find the children's fantasy novels to be both far more creative and far more serious. The trouble with a lot of adult fantasy is that it typically caters strongly to the adult predisposition to inflexibility and set truths about the universe. Typically the fantasy world will follow strict rules and be very similar to our own world, except for a few changes that have been carefully added to the scientific laws of that universe. I think the "children's" way of thinking is more appropriate to fantasy because there are no absolute assumptions that can't be violated. Things don't even have to make any sense, as I think they often don't to children in our world. And again, I don't think there is any reason why all children must think in that way or why all adults must think the other way. Rather, I think these are the tendencies that many adults and children have, and the ways in which authors direct their stories towards a certain audience.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Contrary to Tresopax's view, children do look for rules and logic in fantasy. For example, my 9-year-old boy kept asking me precisely how much time passed in Narnia compared to Earth. He grasped the concept that time can flow a different rates between worlds, but he figures there had to be some kind of linear relationship between Earth time and Narnia time. When I explained that the Narnia stories didn't follow that rule he expressed his opinion that is "made no sense."
Posts: 157 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
One of the reasons I read fantasy is definately because it's a form of escapism. I don't necessarily think that adults are so capable of dealing with adult stress that they have energy left over to explore other worlds. In fact, I think it might be the opposite, at least for some. I don't think that a lot of adults are really capable of dealing with adult stress as much as they appear to be, and because of that, they need a way to get out of the world that is stressing them out. Where else can you go but a book, and if the real world is stressing you out, why would you want to read a novel based on the real world?
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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I read fantasy for a very different reason. I view fantasy as one of the purest ways to understand the essentials of humanity, to explore what is truly universal. Strip away the trappings of environment, superimpose humanity onto an alien landscape, and see what's left. It's a very intellectual process for me, although not always on a conscious level. In fact, when fantasy is purely escapist, I find it mundane (not that I don't read it; I just don't find it rewarding). It's only when fantasy is exploring intricate interpersonal issues, and doing it in a way that only fantasy can, that I find it interesting.
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posted
I think that's another reason why I read fantasy, Senoj. OSC has the ability of getting down to the essentials of humanity, especially in the Speaker series, and that's why I love him as an author.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
There is something inspirational about a lot of fantasy and sci fi books that I find more appealing than say, Erica Jong or something. I read a ton of books targeted towards kids. I like the way characters in these books will have an extremely large problem such as some sort of overlord or something. Instead of just giving up, they will try to fight against it against all odds. This appeals to the part of me that has a hero/ save the world complex. Plus, such stories just... feel better to me if they are done right and are logical too. I do not like dippiness factors even in fantasy.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
There's also the idea that a story, any story of any stripe, connects the teller and listener, writer and reader. That connection, in a world that whirls around us somewhat chaotically, is what we crave and need.
That story, that moment of purchase, that shared time, is what really shields us from the outside world and brings us to a place where we feel we can belong. It's not the world in the story, but the world caught between a mother's breast and a child's cheek as she tells the first bedtime story.
Or, at least, that's what I feel.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I read fantasy because I like having an entertaining book to read of an evening that doesn't place undue stress on my processing power. Fantasy always seems to provide the best story without a lot of overt philosophical or technical baggage.
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